Maciejewski, G and Klepousniotou, E orcid.org/0000-0002-2318-0951 (2020) Disambiguating the ambiguity disadvantage effect: Behavioral and electrophysiological evidence for semantic competition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. ISSN 0278-7393
Abstract
Semantic ambiguity has been shown to slow comprehension, although it is unclear whether this ambiguity disadvantage is attributable to competition in semantic activation or difficulties in response selection. We tested the two accounts by examining semantic relatedness decisions to homonyms, or words with multiple unrelated meanings (e.g., football/electric fan). Our behavioral results showed that the ambiguity disadvantage arises only when the different meanings of words are of comparable frequency, and are thus activated in parallel. Critically, this effect was observed regardless of response-selection difficulties, both when the different meanings triggered inconsistent responses on related trials (e.g., fan–breeze) and consistent responses on unrelated trials (e.g., fan–snake). Our electrophysiological results confirmed that this effect arises during semantic activation of the ambiguous word, indexed by the N400, not during response selection. Overall, the findings show that ambiguity resolution involves semantic competition and delineate why and when this competition arises.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2020 American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the authoritative document published in the APA journal. Please do not copy or cite without author's permission. The final article is available, upon publication, at: https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/xlm0000842 |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Medicine and Health (Leeds) > School of Psychology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 12 Mar 2020 14:51 |
Last Modified: | 30 Apr 2020 14:34 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | American Psychological Association |
Identification Number: | 10.1037/xlm0000842 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:158320 |